Distance and Intimacy:

Voyeurism in Conceptual Art

Joanna McDonald
!e camera, with its unique ability to freeze time and make visible what would otherwise
be private or restricted, has been an elemental tool in the development of an increasingly
voyeuristic society. Barry Schwabsky, a noted art critic, refers to the camera as an
articial sense organ, stating that by nature, as Aristotle said, people desire to know,
and for this reason we love our sense of sight. But we further desire knowledge beyond
the limits of our unaided senses, and beyond the di"erent limits set by ethical scruples and
social convention.
1
In addition to referring to our curious desire for visual knowledge
beyond the biological capabilities of our own eyes and memories, the metaphor of the
camera as a bodily organ is useful in that it speaks to the ways that voyeuristic observation
of an unknown other a"ect the identity-forming structures of the individual. !e complex
oscillatory nature of voyeurism is taken up in the photographic works of Kohei
Yoshiyuki, Shizuka Yokomizo, and Sophie Calle. Each artist explores the dynamic
between voyeur and subject in di"erent ways, although in every case the tension between
distance and intimacy is central to the work. In each artists work the individual who is
the subject of the images remains a stranger to the photographer despite spatial closeness.
!is essay will examine the ways contemporary voyeuristic photography addresses
conceptions of alienation and physical proximity in modern society.
Voyeurism as a means of self-identicationseparating oneself from othersas
theorized by Walter Benjamin and Georg Simmel, is specically related to the ways
individuals experience urban environments. After the nineteenth-century restructuring of
Paris, Charles Baudelaire adopted the term fneur to describe a particular type of person
seen to inhabit the Haussmanized urban metropolis. !e neur rst appeared in
Benjamins writing in 1929 in Die Wiederkehr des Flaneurs and gured prominently in
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1 Barry Schwabsky, review of Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, Tate Modern, Artforum
(September 2010): 33738.
his 1935 sketch for !e Arcades Project.
2
!e neur occupies a unique position in
French society; he is physically a member of the French public while remaining
simultaneously independent from the crowds. !e neur is a man who spends his time
observing the spectacles of the city, he is at home in a crowd, and is the embodiment of
the modern gaze; mobilized, distracted.
3
In Constellations of Reading: Walter Benjamin in
Figures of Actuality, Carlo Salzani notes that the neurs gaze is related to pleasure and
intoxication: pre-modern contemplative observation becomes scopophilia . . . the
derivation of pleasure from the very act of watching, an intoxication that is thus erotic
and connected to voyeurism, and, in turn, to participation.
4
!e neur does not
participate himself: scopophilic engagement with the images of spectacles replaces active
participation. !e combination of engagement and detachment that the neur embodies
mirrors the contemporary voyeur, and o"ers insight into the ways knowledge and pleasure
are gained through the act of observance.
Benjamins theorization of the neur was inuenced by Georg Simmels 1908
essay !e Stranger, in which Simmel engages with the social structure of modern
society through examination of the gure of the stranger. He states that the stranger is
thus being discussed here, not in the sense often touched upon in the past, as the
wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather as the person who comes today
and stays tomorrow.
5
McLemore highlights the di"erence between spatial and social
relationships in Simmels theory, emphasizing that a person may be a member of a group
in a spatial sense but still not a member of the group in a social sense; that a person may
be in a group but not of it.
6
In this way, Simmels stranger is like the neur: both exist as
insiders and outsiders, simultaneously near and far, familiar and foreign. !ese symbolic
gures draw attention to the disconnect between spatial and social relationships in
modern society.
Whether or not Shizuka Yokomizos Stranger series (19982000) was directly
inuenced by Simmels notion of the stranger is unclear, yet her series nevertheless
touches upon many of the issues addressed in Simmels writing. Her work addresses the
fact that one spends time in close proximity with strangers without actually knowing or
engaging with them in meaningful ways. In this series, Yokomizo sent an anonymous
letter to each of her subjects, none of whom she had met before, proposing that they
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2 Benjamin theorized that the neur came into existence in Paris due to the construction of arcades
that created spaces which blurred the boundaries between exteriority and interioritylike the glass-roofed
arcades.
3 Carlo Salzani, Constellations of Reading: Walter Benjamin in Figures of Actuality (Bern, Switzerland:
Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, 2009), 38.
4 Salzani, 38. In his 1905 work, !ree Essays on Sexuality, Sigmund Freud identies scopophilia as a
component instinct of sexuality, exemplied by the objectication of others by a gaze that is both inquisitive
and controlling. !e pleasure gained from looking not only results from the distancing and objectication of
the observed, but also from the observers identication with the observed.
5 Georg Simmel, !e Stranger, trans. Kurt Wol", in Te Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: Free
Press, 1950), 402.
6 S. Dale McLemore, Simmels Stranger: A Critique of the Concept, Te Pacifc Sociological Review
13, no. 2 (Spring 1970): 86.
engage with her under particular and strict parameters for the sake of an artistic project.
Each subject was asked to stand in front of their window for ten minutes at a specic
time to be photographed by Yokomizo; the subjects could not see the photographer since
these encounters were always set to take place after dark. !e letter, which was addressed
Dear Stranger and signed Faithfully, Artist, explicitly stated that if the participant
opened their door in an attempt to meet the artist, the photograph would not be used.
!e formality and structure of the encounters set up by Yokomizo stress the seemingly
insurmountable distance that can exist between people living in close proximity to one
another. Like Simmel, Yokomizo seeks to complicate the way interpersonal distances are
perceived, in order to question social and physical perceptions of space.
Joanna McDonald
3
Fig. 1. Shizuka Yokomizo, from the series Stranger, 1998-2000. Photograph. Shizuka Yokomizo.
Yokomizo has stated: I wanted to come closer to a stranger, as close as possible,
but as a stranger.
7
Her work is inuenced by Paul Valrys essay !e Problem of the
!ree Bodies
8
which explores the relationship between that which the individual calls
My Body and all other uses of the term body. Valry notes the narcissistic privileging of
ones own body, stating that it is the most important object in the world and is in
opposition to this world on which it is aware of being dependent.
9
Yokomizos Stranger
series exemplies the alienation that results from this narcissistic conception of self,
despite the close spatial proximity of other bodies.
!e dynamic between the voyeuristic photographer and his or her subjects is
explored very di"erently in Kohei Yoshiyukis 1979 Parks series. While in Yokomizos
photographs the willingness of her subjects to be photographed is a key conceptual
element, Yoshiyukis work itself relies on the navet of his subjects to the presence of the
camera.
10
!e couples in the photographs are surrounded by conspicuous male voyeurs; a
group that the photographerand by extension, the viewerare implicated in.
11
!e
subculture of voyeurs that is featured in the Parks series was well established in major
parks in Japan, yet most of the couples depicted were unaware of the voyeurs presence.
12

Yoshiyuki visited the park for about six months before he began shooting photographs in
order to gain the subjects trust and used a small, barely noticeable camera with an
infrared bulb to capture the images.
13

While in Yokomizos photographs the voyeuristic encounter between strangers is
represented in the direct relationship between the participant and the artist in a
controlled situation, in Yoshiyukis photographs voyeurism occurs on multiple levels
where the artist has no control over those he photographs. !e photographs cross lines of
socially acceptable behaviour: the couple who is having sex in a public place, the men who
are trespassing on their intimate moment, the photographer who has betrayed the trust of
his subjects, and the gallery witnesses who see what was not meant to be seen.
14
!e
central subjects of the photographs are the onlookers rather than the couples themselves.
Like the neur, the onlookers in Yoshiyukis photographs participate in a culture of
observation in which exhibits of desire are enacted through scopophilia.
Many articles that look at Yoshiyukis Parks series specify that the photographs are
not erotic or desire inducing, when arguably they are sexualized images, likely to be desire
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7 Shizuka Yokomizo, in conversation with Tom Trevor, 2003, quoted in Tom Trevor, Shizuka Yokomizo:
Distance (Exeter, Devon: Spacex, 2004), 2.
8 Trevor, 3.
9 Paul Valry, Paul Valry: Selected Writings, trans. Louise Varse (Binghamton, NY: New Directions,
1950), 231.
10 Yoshiyuki is a Japanese artist who captured many controversial images of couples engaged in sexual
acts in public parks in Tokyo throughout the 1970s.
11 Philip Gefter, Sex in the Park, and Its Sneaky Spectators, Te New York Times, September 23, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/arts/design/23geft.html?pagewanted=all.
12 Gefter.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
inducing for some viewers.
15
Because of the ambiguous relation between Yoshiyuki and
his subjects it is potentially uncomfortable for critics to examine the artists intentions in
being involved with the events depicted in the photographs. Indeed, David Cohen states,
!e crucial ambiguity in Mr. Yoshiyukis work isnt in his subjects libidos but his own.
16

!e artist himself, then, takes on the identity of the stranger, who is anonymous to gallery
visitors and critics alike, as much as the couples in his photographs. Like Simmels
stranger, Yoshiyuki is spatially part of the group of voyeurs, but is made an outsider by
the role he plays as documenter.
When the Parks series was originally exhibited in 1979, Yoshiyuki enlarged the
images so the gures appeared life-size. He chose to keep the lights o" in the gallery and
gave visitors ashlights to aid them in seeing the photographs.
17
In an interview he
stated, I wanted people to look at the bodies in the photographs an inch at a time. . . .
!ey might even touch the photos.
18
Rather than the stark white walls on which
photographs are usually shown, Yoshiyukis exhibition style imitates the act the
photographs portray. In this way, Yoshiyuki can be seen as seeking to dissolve the
threshold of the material photographdirectly immersing viewers in the scenes the
photographs depict. !e photographs, by virtue of their subject matter, blur the
boundaries between public and private space, for they show scenes of intimacy that would
normally take place in the private sphere.
Artist Sophie Calle has done a number of works that oscillate between conceptions
Joanna McDonald
5
15 Gefter, for instance.
16 David Cohen, Peeking in on the Social Set, Te New York Sun, September 6, 2007, http://
www.nysun.com/arts/peeking-in-on-the-social-set/62042/; emphasis added.
17 Kohei Yoshiyuki, Down in the Park: Yoshiyuki Koheis Nocturnes, interviewed by Nobuyoshi
Araki, Aperture 188 (Fall 2007): 76.
18 Yoshiyuki, 76.
Fig. 2. Kohei Yoshiyuki, from the series Te Park, 1973. Gelatin silver print. Kohei Yoshiyuki. Courtesy
of Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.
of boundaries and surveillance, and an examination of her photographic series, Te
Detective (1981), is useful in comparison with Yoshiyuki and Yokomizo. In it she inverts
the voyeuristic model employed by these artists and instead makes herself the subject of
the voyeuristic gaze. In describing the premise of the series she states, in April 1981, at
my request, my mother went to a detective agency. She hired them to follow me, to report
on my daily activities, and to provide photographic evidence of my existence.
19
On the
day Te Detective was enacted, Calle led her pursuer to places in Paris which [were] of
personal signicance to her: through the Montparnasse graveyard for example, which she
crossed so often on her way to school, and to the Jardin de Luxembourg, where as a child
she exchanged her rst kisses.
20
Both she and the detective created a detailed report of
what she did that day. !ese descriptionsoften conictingare presented alongside the
investigators photographs in her exhibition, Te Detective.
!e inconsistencies between the two documents about the events of Calles day
draw attention to the inadequacy of spectatorship as a means of gaining meaningful
information. Despite the private investigators professional and thorough approach to his
job of shadowing Calle, the information he draws from his pursuit is incomplete and of
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19 Sophie Calle, Double Game (London: Violette Editions, 1999), 12223. During exhibitions this
explanation is mounted on the wall in adhesive lettering.
20 Petra Grdren, On the Trail of the Ego: Sophie Calles Pursuits, trans. Pauline Cumbers, in
CTRL [SPACE]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, eds. !omas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne,
and Peter Weibel (Karlsruhe, Germany: ZKM, 2002), 410.
Fig. 3. Sophie Calle, detail of Te Shadow, 1981. Gelatin silver print. Sophie Calle / ADAGP. Courtesy of
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
little use in interpreting Calles actions; writer and critic Petra Grdren asserts that he
neither succeeds in deciphering the meaning of the places to which the artist leads him,
nor of the encounters which she deliberately arranges.
21
Te Detective illuminates both
the desire of the individual to be the subject of the voyeuristic gaze, and the problems that
arise from a voyeuristic model of knowing. !is issue is explored in Ursula Frohnes essay
Screen Tests: Media Narcissism, !eatricality and the Internalized Observer, in which
she theorizes that through the process of promoting ones image through reality-based
media, the context of ones life becomes an imitation or image itself and, in a sense, loses
its authenticity as a result of the permanent blurring of the lines between private and
public spaces.
22
Calles work explores the relationship between voyeurism and identity
formation that is deconstructed in Frohnes writing. Although she does not go so far as to
suggest that voyeurism causes individuals lives to become less meaningful, Calle focuses
on the di$culty of gaining legitimate information about a stranger solely through
observation.
In voyeuristic photography, qualities such as distance and intimacy, collaboration
and control, and surveillance and exhibitionism, become thoroughly and inextricably
entangled.
23
!e photographic works of Shizuka Yokomizo, Kohei Yoshiyuki, and Sophie
Calle develop a commentary on the complex nature of the relationship between personal
identity, photography, and voyeurism. !e e"ectiveness of these artists pieces results from
their own engagement with public spaces and the centrality of subjects who are unaware
of their role in the artists projects. !e prevalence of photographic images and the
accessibility of cameras in contemporary society enhance and alter the way individuals are
a"ected by, and conceive of, voyeurism and scopophilia. !ese works highlight the
perceived connection between vision and knowledge, and call into question its usefulness
by complicating the seemingly simple nature of this relationship. !ese issues are not
new; modern conceptions of social and spatial relationsexemplied in these
photographic worksare informed by Benjamin and Simmels theories of the historical
voyeuristic gaze.
Joanna McDonald
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21 Grdren, 414.
22 Ursula Frohne, Screen Tests: Media Narcissism, !eatricality, and the Internalized Observer, in
CTRL [SPACE]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, eds. !omas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne,
and Peter Weibel (Karlsruhe, Germany: ZKM, 2002), 253-277.
23 Shizuka Yokomizo, Museum of Contemporary Photography, accessed December 1, 2010, http://
www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/yokomizo_shizuka_.php.